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| Philip Jeck |
This happened in October, but I forgot to press go on this until today
It was a strange one at the Union Chapel, an odd Friday night. A screening of four films by Stan Brakhage – the programme had him as “a non-narrative film-maker, the most famous experimental film-maker of the 20th century” – called Visions in Meditation. These were abstract footage of a journey through the US in the late 80s, filmed on 16mm, and set – with the exception of one film – to a soundtrack of silence. Interspersed between the showings was music – minimalist, experimental, electronic, ambient – commissioned specially for this show, to respond to the films. And that’s what I was there for.
All three pieces were performed by the composer seated at a desk, twiddling nobs on a synthesiser, accompanied by a string trio, two violins and a cello from the London Contemporary Orchestra. The first to go up was Sarah Davachi, a Canadian composer who specialises in “disclosing the delicate psychoacoustics of intimate aural spaces” – this means drones – and who has made some great albums that I’ve enjoyed listening to on YouTube.
The wafting smoke, pentagram candle holders hanging from the ceiling and most especially the general ambience of grinding discondant drones gave the whole thing somewhat more of a Satanic ritual vibe than your average Friday night in Upper Street – unless you count the Slug and Lettuce, obviously. It would be harsh to call Davachi’s output “anti-music”, but being as it dispenses with rhythm, harmony and melody, it wouldn’t be unfair. In much the same way as in jazz you can play anything except the wrong notes, in this kind of music you can play anything as long as it’s not musical. But I’m a great fan, because by dispensing of all the usual techniques, you get music that is free of the manipulations, end-seeking and confinement typical of most performance*.
This focus on means rather than ends gives ambient, experimental music a refreshing, egoless and what I am going to call “dis-rational” character. The benefit of disrationality is that by offering nothing for the ego-mind to hold on to, it points to the reality beyond experience. But of course, when we dispense with rationality, it becomes difficult to say whether things are pointing to reality or just stealing a living. It’s one thing to listen to this on YouTube, but something else to pay actual money and spend your actual Friday night doing it in public. There was definitely an emperor’s new clothes/Arts Council funding/#WhitePeopleTwitter about the whole thing; as though at any moment, someone sensible might walk in, turn on the lights and go: “What the fuck are you lot doing?”
The second composer was Philip Jeck, an avuncular-looking figure with white hair, pate shining in the purple light, wearing a blazer. I did enjoy watching this grandfatherly character conjure some extremely dark horror soundtrack on his go. The third was Darkstar – or at least one of them – who played the most “musical” music of the three, which was actually a relief by this point, and gave the string trio some actual playing to do, which was nice. But I was never close to an insight in how the music was responding to the films.
As for the films, the lack of narrative was challenging. I was struck by how much I craved some – any – narrative. I took to reading the programme by the light of my phone: Oh! He’s travelling across America. Oh! He’s the most famous experimental film-maker of the 20th century. And these little titbits of narrative did in fact make the experience more compelling. I was left to wonder how much more I would have enjoyed them had I known more about the story of why he had made them, but that did seem as if it might defeat the point of non-narrative cinema.
In fact, I realised, my need of narrative was mostly to justify why I was watching them. If I could tell myself a story about why I was bothering, I’d happily sit there, even if I didn’t “enjoy” the experience.
It seemed a form over content kind of thing. The films were of the American landscape, but whatever it was they were trying to say – their narrative, for want of a better word – seemed to be carried more by the arrangement of the shots than the shots themselves. There were moments in the films where the rhythm of the cuts and the repetition of shots did come together to offer something like a visual music, but those moments soon passed. Many of the shots were dark, dim or blurred. I was left feeling that if you are going to have no soundtrack and no narrative, the least you could do is have some decent pictures, but that is clearly something else I have to learn about.
A strange one, then. I would have liked to have asked someone who did enjoy it to explain what I was missing, but that’s probably cheating.
* Can you see I’m struggling to explain this bit?
